The steak frying school

Nobody needs to be a trained cook to fry a really good steak. What matters is the choice of food (e. g. organic meat), the right pan and taking heed of four little rules for frying steaks.

Four steps to the perfect steak:

1. Preparation

The meat to be fried should be at room temperature. Take the meat out of the fridge about ½ hour before frying it, but do not season it with salt (which removes liquid from the meat) or pepper (pepper burns in the pan). Extra tip: the steak will turn out particularly juicy if you wrap a slice of bacon round it and tie this firmly in place with kitchen twine.

2. The right frying temperature

Heat the stainless steel pan to medium heat without oil. Wait three to four minutes and then perform the water drop test. Simply use your fingers to flick a little cold water into the pan – if the water "dances" around in pearl-shaped drops, the pan is at the right temperature. Briefly wipe the pan with a paper towel and then add the oil.

3. Starting to fry

Place the steak in the pan and press it down briefly with a turner. Please don't use a (meat) fork because sharp objects damage the meat, the meat juices escape and the steak will turn dry.

4. Wait and turn

Now comes the trickiest moment when you're frying a steak, because only when the meat "releases itself" from the bottom of the pan can you turn it and turn down the heat on the stove. A two centimeter thick steak can be turned after approx. two minutes, and then fried on the other side for two minutes. The meat now has a thin crust on the outside – inside it is juicy and pink. This is referred to as medium. If you prefer your steak rare, you don't need to fry it as long.

A steak is well done if the juice it exudes when you cut it is no longer bloody. The rule of thumb is that you need to fry a steak one minute for every centimeter of thickness. You can determine how well done the meat is by pressing it lightly with the turner (elastic = rare, slight resistance = medium, feels solid = well done). Shortly before the end of the frying time you can season the meat with salt and pepper.